Convicts to Australia, Puritans to America

Mate!

You think $50 for a GALLON of Old Granddad is expensive? Try $50 for a 700 ml bottle! (Although it is those cheap-arse Aussie dollars.) Not 750 ml -- it's a short bottle. And it's not 80 proof. Down here they dilute the whiskey, even a lot of the foreign stuff, to 37.5% alcohol. Government social policy to keep the ockers and hoons from pickling their livers. Which they still manage to do anyway. That's what happens when your ancestry arrived in chains. They made the Borderers look like law-and-orderers.

Rick
Melbourne, Australia

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Dear Rick,

37.5 percent?

Good god almighty, boy!

We nurse babies on better likker! Hell, that ain't even mouthwash grade.

On the other hand, I've seen pitchers of them Aussie wimmin all frawlickkin around on the beach dancing with barbecued shrimp and what all. Looks like to me the place is quite tolerable, even when a guy is sober.

Then too, you can be glad we got the Puritans and you got the convicts. I doubt you have people with bad hair buying convertibles so they can have a 360% view of the skies when Jesus returns during the Rapture. There's tradeoffs in life, bud.

By the way, one of the Bageant tribe did end up in Australia during the colonial period. Arrived a free man but wasn't there six months until he was in chains. He was put to running a river ferry, chained to the damned thing. One day a nobleman fell off the ferry and the Bageant, despite his chains, managed to get into the river and save the nobleman's life. Well, you know how noblemen were back then, kinda like the Republican rich are now, but with a measurable body temperature. So the nobleman arranged for the Bageant sod's freedom, and gave him a nice reward to boot.

And ya know what? In less than a year, Bageant had drunk up his reward, kicked over the milk bucket of peace and civility and was right back on that ferry in chains. Honest to god, my Aussie friend. It's right there on the Internet, where, as we know, all truth seems to reside these days.

Now tell me 'bout the ockers and hoons. They sounds like nice folks.

In brotherhood,

Joe